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Vera Rubin Observatory
Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)
Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC)

Rubin Observatory's LSST will commence science operations for the main survey in 2024, imaging more than 18,000 square degrees in 6 optical bands to an unprecendented depth over the following 10 years. Already the LSST Year 1 data will cover ~15,000 deg^2 to i-mag 24.3, a fantastic data set for cosmological discoveries. Learn more about LSST...

The DESC is one of the LSST science collaborations and its main target is to address the mystery of cosmic acceleration, i.e. the fact that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Discovered in 1998, cosmic acceleration (frequently termed dark energy) remains an unexplained fundamental physics problem, which might hint at a new energy density component or at modifications to our understanding of gravity. Our lab is deeply involved in DESC science preparation and planning and several cosmology projects are centered around LSST data. Learn more about DESC...

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Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory with multiple science goals ranging from dark energy, galaxy formation, astrophysics, to exoplanets. The telescope has a 2.4m primary mirror, which is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror, but it can image 100x the area of a Hubble image. Scheduled for launch in 2025/26 it has a primary mission of 5 years, which can be extended based on community science interests.   
Roman's cosmology survey is composed of a wide-field imaging, a wide-field spectroscopic, and a supernova component. The combination of multi-band space-based imaging and deep grism spectroscopy will allow for exquisite systematics control for weak lensing, galaxy clustering, and galaxy clusters based probes. 
Learn more about Roman ST. 

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Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx)

The SPHEREx mission, part of NASA's Explorer Program, will explore the beginning of the universe, the history of galaxy formation, and the role of interstellar ices during the birth of new stars and planets, while providing a unique all-sky data set for astronomy. It will survey the entire sky four times in optical and infrared light, capturing detailed spectral information about hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies. The two-year mission funded at $242 million (not including launch costs) is targeted to launch in 2024. Learn more about SPHEREx

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CMB-S4

Ongoing and future CMB experiments (ACT, SPT, Simons Observatory and ultimately CMB-S4) are ideal datasets to combine and contrast with galaxy redshift surveys. Differences between primary CMB probes, such as temperature and polarization, and large-scale structure probes such as weak lensing and galaxy clustering can reveal tensions in our model.

CMB lensing and its cross-correlations with weak lensing and galaxy clustering allow for significantly tighter constraints on our cosmological models and on astrophysical phenomena.  

Learn more about CMB-S4...

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Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will map the 3-dimensional distribution of 10s of millions of galaxies thereby constraining the effects of dark energy on the geometry and growth of structures of the Universe matter density field.  The DESI instrument will implement a new highly multiplexed optical spectrograph on the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, 55 miles from Tucson. A new optical corrector design creates a very large, 8.0 square degree field of view on the sky. The focal plane accommodates 5,000 small computer controlled fiber positioners, which can be reconfigured for the next exposure in less than two minutes while the telescope slews to the next field.  Learn more about DESI

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Dark Energy Survey (DES)

The DES has completed its survey operations in 2019 and has imaged 5,000 square degrees of the night sky in 5 optical bands to a depth of i-mag ~24. The DES Collaboration is focussing on the science analyses of this exciting data set and will continously publish results in cosmology, galaxy formation, transients, Milky Way, and Solar System science over the coming years.
DES data provides an exciting opportunity to explore cosmic acceleration now and it is an ideal testing ground for the LSST analysis, in particular for LSST Year 1, which is comparable in depth to DES.  Learn more about DES...

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